Appendix.] 



III. On the Country where the Apricot Tree grows wild. By 

 M. L. Regnier. Translated from the French in the Maguzin 

 Encyclbpedique for November, 1815. By Richard Anthony 

 Salisbury, Esq. F.R. S. 8$c. 



Read June 15, 1819. 



The name of Primus Armeniaca, given to the Apricot tree ever 

 since the time of Columella and Pliny, seems to have esta- 

 blished an opinion of its being indigenous to Armenia so firmly, 

 as to have been repeated by one writer after another up to the 

 present day, without ever examining on what foundations that 

 opinion rested. Yet the very early season in which this tree 

 flowers here (in France), while liable to perpetual returns of frost, 

 having raised doubts in my mind on this point, I became anxious 

 to examine whatever might have been said about its origin. All 

 vegetables, from what I could ever learn respecting their organi- 

 zation, are so formed as to perpetuate themselves by seeds in the 

 climates where they originate. If obstacles were thrown in the 

 way of this by nature, the species would soon cease to exist. It 

 therefore appears to me, that Armenia, a high mountainous 

 country, the climate of which resembles that of middle Europe, 

 cannot possibly be the country of a tree, which begins to flower 

 so early, that its blossoms are often destroyed by frost, notwith- 

 standing all the care we bestow upon them. Left to itself, the 

 Apricot tree with us would no doubt soon disappear ; and it is a 

 remarkable fact, that though it has now been extensively culti- 

 vated in most parts of Europe for many ages, it has never yet 

 sprang up from seeds in any of our forests. Neither has it been 

 found wild, either in Armenia or in any of the neighbouring pro- 



